Yardbarker
x
Get to work, NCAA: Return of football video game makes sense
Alexander Pohl/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Get to work, NCAA: Return of football video game makes sense

There is nothing quite so boring as a bloated bureaucracy forming something called a working group, so let me begin by cutting to the chase: This is a column about a video game.

OK, it’s not entirely about that, but it kind of is. We are now nearly 10 years removed from a former UCLA basketball player named Ed O’Bannon filing a lawsuit against the NCAA because he was allegedly depicted in a video game without his consent; we are more than five years removed from EA Sports ceasing to publish its wildly popular NCAA Football game because of the complications that arose from lawsuits by O’Bannon and others. And after all this time, we are perhaps finally edging closer to the moment when that video game might actually be able to return.

This is, of course, not exactly the primary reason why the NCAA has decided to form that working group to study the notion of whether college athletes should be able to benefit off their name, image and likeness. I’d like to think it was driven by the tide of public opinion and common sense, which -- ever since O’Bannon filed that lawsuit in July of 2009 -- has slowly moved in the direction of figuring a way to fairly compensate athletes who bring in millions of dollars for their universities. More likely, though, it was driven by legislation, primarily the bill introduced by a North Carolina representative named Mark Walker, that would strip the NCAA of its tax-exempt status if it doesn’t allow players to profit off their name, image and likeness.

But either way, we’re here now; the NCAA is finally taking up the debate we’ve been having among ourselves for years, and that’s a huge step forward. The question now is: Will this working group actually work?

Given the amount of money being pumped into the sport, it seems like a no-brainer to allow athletes to profit from outside revenue streams -- similar to the way Olympic athletes do -- if it’s carefully regulated. It is a simple and incremental way for the NCAA, which reported revenue of $1.1 billion in 2017, to acknowledge that it really can embrace modernity; it allows it to stem the rising tide of its own hypocrisy while saving the more contentious conversation about colleges directly paying players for a later date.

And the return of the NCAA Football game could wind up being a huge part of the NCAA’s attempt to rehab its image, because there is virtually no one who doesn’t want the game to come back. The fans love it, and the players love it. Odds are that the vast majority of them would be more than happy to accept the small amount of money that past players were given when Electronic Arts, the game’s manufacturer, settled its part of the O’Bannon lawsuit. The average payout reportedly was about $1,200 per athlete.

If certain star players wanted to negotiate for money, I imagine EA wouldn’t have a problem with it, given how much cash the game itself brings in. (At the O'Bannon trial, an EA Sports executive testified the game brought in $80 million in revenue on the sale of  about 2 million units.) EA itself has already said it would be “very interested” in re-entering the market if the legal issues could be sorted out. 

If all of this seems to make too much sense, here’s where we might run into a problem. This is the NCAA we’re dealing with, after all, and there will no doubt be some members of this “working group” who will continue to cling to the NCAA’s 19th-century notions about the purity of the amateur ideal. (Never mind that one of the lead members of the working committee, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, made nearly $2 million in salary in 2016.) In which case, if this working committee decides to bury the issue under the churn of its own bureaucracy, it might be worth pointing out that this debate is one of the primary reasons the NCAA came to exist in the first place.

Way back in 1905, the NCAA was formed, in part, because no one was quite sure how to handle the fact that athletes like James Hogan, who played for Yale, had a sponsorship deal for his own brand of cigarettes. And so the NCAA eventually decided it would tamp down all those things, and keep them underground for decades, until finally, more than a century later, its hand was forced.

It is not the early 1900s anymore. And despite a generation’s worth of moralistic freak-outs, it turns out a video game is nothing like a cigarette. So maybe it’s time for the NCAA to actually get to work, and in the process, they can let us play again.

More must-reads:

Customize Your Newsletter

+

Get the latest news and rumors, customized to your favorite sports and teams. Emailed daily. Always free!

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.